income tax advisory services | TaxConnections (2024)

Are you navigating the confusing world of taxes and wondering where most people turn for advice? You might be surprised to learn that despite the myriad of professional resources available, 53% of taxpayers — still rely on friends and family for tax advice. This trend is particularly prevalent among younger taxpayers, who often turn to digital sources or personal networks. Meanwhile, older taxpayers tend to gravitate towards traditional printed materials for guidance.

In this blog, we’ll dive into how you can access free or low-cost tax help and what you should know when seeking professional guidance. From IRS-supported services to tapping into the expertise of tax professionals, we’ll explore the avenues to ensure your tax filing is as smooth and stress-free as possible. So, let’s get started and turn tax season from a time of confusion to a period of confident decision-making!

Choosing the Right Tax Advisor: Get Free Help from Qualified Professionals

Selecting the ideal tax advisor can be a game-changer for your financial health. In a sea of options, how do you find free, qualified assistance that aligns with your unique tax situation? Let’s navigate through the process of identifying the right tax professional, ensuring they have the expertise and compatibility to meet your specific needs.

Assessing Your Needs

When it comes to choosing the right tax advisor, the first step is assessing your needs. This means taking a close look at your financial situation, tax obligations, and what you specifically require from tax assistance. Are you looking for someone to help with straightforward tax filing, or do you need more comprehensive tax planning and strategy advice? Understanding your needs is crucial in finding a tax professional who can provide the most effective and relevant support.

In this assessment phase, consider factors like your income sources, investment portfolio, and whether you have any specific tax situations, such as owning a business or having multiple income streams. Younger taxpayers might prioritize digital convenience and the best tax software, while others might value personalized, face-to-face guidance from a tax professional. By clearly defining your needs, you can better target your search for tax assistance, ensuring that the advice you receive is tailored to your circ*mstances and fully addresses your tax concerns.

Researching Qualified Tax Professionals

To manage your tax affairs effectively, you must find a tax professional who aligns with your needs. It’s not just about finding someone qualified; it’s about finding someone who understands the nuances of your unique tax situation, whether it’s simple tax filing or more complex tax planning and strategy. For example, a business owner might need multiple financial professionals to ensure tax season goes smoothly.

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The Internal Revenue Service today warned taxpayers to watch for promotions involving exaggerated art donation deductions that can target high-income filers and offered special tips for people to use to avoid getting caught in a scheme.

There are ways for taxpayers to properly claim donations of art. But some unscrupulous promoters may use direct solicitation to promise values of art that are too good to be true. These promoters persuade taxpayers, usually high-income taxpayers, to purchase the art, wait to donate the art and then take an incorrect deduction for the art donated. As part of a larger effort to increase compliance work on high-income individuals and corporations, and protect taxpayers from scams, the IRS has active promoter investigations and taxpayer audits underway in this area.

“Creativity in art is a beautiful thing, but aggressive creativity in art donation deductions can paint a bad picture for people pulled into these schemes,” said IRS Commissioner Danny Werfel. “This is another example where people should be careful when it comes to aggressive marketing and promotions. There are legitimate ways to claim an art donation, but taxpayers should be careful to understand the rules and watch out for inflated values or questionable appraisals. Beauty is not always in the eye of the beholder when it comes to tax deductions of art.”

The IRS is using a variety of compliance tools to combat abusive art donations through audits of tax returns and civil penalty investigations. The IRS reminds taxpayers, including high-income filers that may be targets of these schemes, to watch out for aggressive promotions. In addition, following Inflation Reduction Act funding, the IRS is focused on increasing compliance efforts on high-income and high-wealth individuals to ensure filers pay the right amount of tax owed.

How The Scheme Works

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Washington, D.C. – Senate Finance Committee Chair Ron Wyden, D-Ore., continued his investigation into Big Pharma’s tax practices, and how loopholes in the tax code have allowed multinational companies to further abuse tax havens and avoid paying U.S. taxes on prescription drug sales. Wyden wrote to Bristol Myers Squibbto request information about their reported use of offshore subsidiaries in Ireland in a manner that may have violated longstanding IRS anti-abuse rules.

“According to public reports, in 2012 Bristol Myers developed a sophisticated tax avoidance strategy where it shifted intellectual property rights for several prescription drugs to a newly created offshore subsidiary to shift untaxed gains and generate amortization deductions. At the time, Bristol Myers’s U.S. operations held patents on several drugs with a fair market value that had already been fully amortized for tax purposes, while an Irish Bristol Myers subsidiary held patents that it had not yet fully amortized and thus would produce tax deductions. Bristol Myers then reportedly formed a new foreign partnership in Ireland by transferring the patent rights from existing U.S. and Irish affiliates to the newly created partnership. Bristol Myers then proceeded to allocate tax deductions from the new partnership structure in a way that would use amortization deductions associated with Irish patents to offset U.S. taxes [while simultaneously shifting untaxed gains of the U.S. affiliates to the foreign affiliate] and substantially lowering its tax rate. This strategy was extraordinarily effective, as Bristol Myers’s effective tax rate declined from 24.7 percent in 2011 to negative 7 percent in 2012,”Wyden wrote.

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A Transformative Solution For Marketing Tax Services

New Business Model Increases Firm Revenue, Gives Motivated Employees A BIG Raise, And Outperform Competitors In The Tax, Accounting, Legal Services Profession

How can you change the course of your firms’ success now and years into the future?

This article is dedicated to leaders in tax, accounting, and legal services firms who like to make things happen, leaders who want to effect change in their firm this year and into the future. It is written to educate firm leaders how to operate at a much higher level than competitors in the tax, accounting, and legal services profession. A goal of tax, accounting and legal services leadership should be to become a “destination firm”, the ultimate destination for an employee – a firm people want to work with and stay for a very long time. The key to success is building a destination firm for your tax, accounting, and/or legal professional services. Destination firms are supported by innovative, motivated, engaged, and highly productive employees led by innovative leaders who make things happen!

“ I like things to happen, and if they do not happen, I like to make things happen.”
– Winston Churchill

Background Information

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It is widely known that brain drain is the worst threat to a country’s prosperity. The Greek government announced legislative initiative to reverse this phenomenon, to attract foreign investment and to invite foreign nationals to settle and work in Greece. The legislative initiatives also provide for a50% reduction in income tax for the next 7 years,either if the job is transferred to Greece or if the interestedindividualssettle as self-employed orevenas employees in another professional employment in Greece.

It is well known that financial motivation alone is never enough to decide upon one’s return to a country or even to move to another employer.The excellent lifestyle, the mild climate along with the working conditions (since white collar personnel can work remotely) play a vital role in such decision making. Moreover, with the crisis now behind Greece and the long-term prospects in front of the country accompanied with political stability, will eventually result in an effective state and an economy that can offer more employment opportunities. Greece is one of the safest countries in the world for the expatriate and his family.

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The Internal Revenue Service today announced the appointment of 13 new members to the Internal Revenue Service Advisory Council.

The IRSAC, established in 1953, is an organized public forum for IRS officials and representatives of the public to discuss various issues in tax administration. The council provides the IRS commissioner with relevant feedback, observations and recommendations. It will submit its annual report to the agency at a public meeting in November 2021.

The IRS strives to appoint members to the IRSAC who represent the taxpaying public, the tax professional community, small and large businesses, tax exempt and government entities and information reporting interests.

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It is widely known that brain drain is the worst threat to a country’s prosperity. The Greek government announced legislative initiative to reverse this phenomenon, to attract foreign investment and to invite foreign nationals to settle and work in Greece. The legislative initiatives also provide for a50% reduction in income tax for the next 7 years,either if the job is transferred to Greece or if the interestedindividualssettle as self-employed orevenas employees in another professional employment in Greece.

It is well known that financial motivation alone is never enough to decide upon one’s return to a country or even to move to another employer.The excellent lifestyle, the mild climate along with the working conditions (since white collar personnel can work remotely) play a vital role in such decision making. Moreover, with the crisis now behind Greece and the long-term prospects in front of the country accompanied with political stability, will eventually result in an effective state and an economy that can offer more employment opportunities. Greece is one of the safest countries in the world for the expatriate and his family.

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Individuals, businesses, schools, and federal and state agencies all continue to be impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic.And as the IRS resumes its business operations that were partially or completely shut down at the inception of theCOVID-19 national emergency, it is still facing challenges of balancing the health and safety of its employees with accomplishing its core mission: providing much-needed services for taxpayers; administering the 2020 filing season in which it has already processed over 149 million returns and issued over 119 million refunds totaling over $290 billion; guarding against identity theft, refund fraud and sophisticated cyber-attacks often exceeding 1.4 billion attempts each year; performing the extensive programming required to administer the 2021 filing season; processing any remaining Economic Income Payments (EIPs); analyzing potential legislation and preparing for another possible round of stimulus payments; providing legal and administrative guidance; incorporating new legislation changes into its operations; and deploying hundreds of Customer Service Representatives to assist with wildfire and hurricane relief efforts– all while continuing its tax enforcement efforts in a socially distanced environment. As part of the reopening, the IRS continues to evaluate what needs to be done to administer the tax laws and provide necessary taxpayer services under similar conditions in the future so that it can provide the necessary service required by taxpayers.My office will continue to advocate for improved taxpayer services regardless of the circ*mstances.

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Introduction

On Friday, December 20^th of 2019, PresidentDonald J. Trumpsigned into law:

• H. R. 1158, entitled the “Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2020,” which divisions A through D of the enrolled bill provides full-year funding through September 30, 2020, for projects and activities of certain agencies of the Federal Government; and
• H. R. 1865, entitled the “Further Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2020,” which Divisions A through H of the enrolled bill provides full-year funding through September 30, 2020, for projects and activities of the remaining agencies of the Federal Government.

Both H.R. 1158 and H.R. 1865 (hereinafter “the new Act”) averted a government shutdown that would have commenced on December 21, 2019 without this sweeping $ 1.4 trillion spending package being passed into law. Most of the new Act outlines how the government will appropriate the federal budget funding across numerous departments and programs including, but not limited to, the Department of Defense; Department of Transportation; Department of Labor; Department of the Interior; and of course, the Department of Treasury.

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The Internal Revenue Service announced the appointment of 12 new members to the Internal Revenue Service Advisory Council.

The IRSAC, established in 1953, is an organized public forum for IRS officials and representatives of the public to discuss various issues in tax administration. The council provides the IRS commissioner with relevant feedback, observations and recommendations. It will submit its annual report to the agency at a public meeting in Nov. 2020.

The IRS strives to appoint members to the IRSAC who represent the taxpaying public, the tax professional community, small and large businesses, tax exempt and government entities and information reporting interests.

The following persons were appointed to serve three-year appointments on the council beginning in 2020:

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The Internal Revenue Service has selected nine new members for the Electronic Tax Administration Advisory Committee (ETAAC).

Established in 1998, the ETAAC is a public forum for the discussion of issues in electronic tax administration. Its aim is to prevent identity theft and refund fraud in support of paperless filing of tax and information returns. ETAAC members work closely with the Security Summit, a joint effort of the IRS, state tax administrators and the nation’s tax industry to fight identity theft and refund fraud.

Committee members include state tax officials, consumer advocates, cybersecurity and information security specialists, tax preparers, tax software developers and representatives of the payroll and financial communities.

The following individuals have been appointed to serve three-year terms on the committee beginning in September 2019:

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As part of its recent tax reform, Congress included a new 20% deduction of pass-through income for trades or businesses other than C-corporations. This pass-through income is referred to as qualified business income (QBI); for trades or businesses, it generally includes bottom-line profits, and for S-corporations and partnerships, it includes K-1 flow-through income. This new law was added as tax code section 199A, so the deduction is often referred to as the 199A deduction. Read More